That will last you a lifetime

Murphy seems to have a law for every eventuality but the one I’m thinking of is;

What can go wrong will go wrong and it will do so when you least expect it.

There are a couple of linked quotes as well. I like this one from Douglas Adams.

The major difference between a thing that might go wrong and a thing that cannot possibly go wrong is that when a thing that cannot possibly go wrong goes wrong it usually turns out to be impossible to get at or repair.

Wise words.

Bearing those words in mind when you are looking at buying anything for your preps is always a good thing to do. Look at each item and think about how robust it is, will it survive what I am going to use it for? Do you have any experience with the item? If not read some reviews or try it yourself, although this is no guarantee that it will do what you want.

Consider having multiple copies or even different suppliers for your common goods. For example I have some very expensive knives and a lot of cheap ones which I can let others use. I have several expensive torches and a lot of cheap ones, some rechargable. This gives a lot of flexability without having everything top quality. Let’s face it I can buy a lot of cheaper torches for £70.

Having muliple suppliers means if there is a design weakness then it only impacts a portion of your preps.

It is more of an issue though when you get to the more expensive items. If you are looking at motor bikes for example, you want to standardise to enable cannabalisation of parts. Just make sure you get plenty of spares and that the unit is a robust one before you start. Standardisation has its advantages but like everything else we are balancing costs against looking for robustness. It is a situation that we are all in; Weighing cost against scope and quality and we don’t always have the funds to buy what we need. Sometimes we just have to make do. Let us make sure that we spend just enough to make sure we don’t have to do without because we saved just that little too much.

Consider that everything you put in your preps will be used, broken, stolen or worn out within a few decades at most. Many items well before that so you need to buy rght to maximise your investment and make them last as well as looking at replacing them with hand made items or finding alternative methods to perform the tasks you use them for. Despite having several very expensive blades, guns, totches, etc. I do not expect any to last me the rest of my life. (I’m planning on still having a long life after an event)

Finally, these items may come with a lifetime guarantee at the moment but that means nothing. When it breaks that is the end of it’s life and realistically where would you get it returned after an event. Consider as well that if it is something critical it could be the end of your life too.

Be careful with your funds but not to the detriment of the item and don’t just buy one uber item when you can buy several different units. As my grandmother never said ‘Don’t put all your eggs in one basket’.

After an event nothing is going to last your lifetime except your life and the wrong items.